Holiday

Why do you love St. Patty's? 'Cause you get to wear fun green garb? Do you heart this holiday 'cause it means spring's right around the corner? Or maybe you're Irish and it's a huge part of your heritage. Irish or not, It's your lucky day. GL's got a great guide for celebratin' this holiday.

FYI

St. Patrick's Day is a holiday commemorating the patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick. He died on March 17, 461 AD, the very day that we celebrate St. Patty's on ! What started as a religious holiday celebrated mostly by the Irish, has morphed into an international holiday that people of any and every culture celebrate.

St. Patty's Day was first celebrated in America with a parade in Boston in 1737. Today, some towns paint the yellow road lines green for a day. In Chicago they dye the river green. (Don't worry - it's a special dye that only lasts a few hours and doesn't harm any wildlife!) Today, it is estimated that nearly 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry. That's more than all the citizens in Ireland!

Now to the more fun stuff...wanna throw a St. Patty's Day party of your own? Here's some fun ideas for everything from great St. Patty's invites to green-day grub that all your guests are sure to enjoy!

Irish Invitations

If you're a crafty chica, make invitations by hand. How to do it? Use construction paper, markers, and glitter to make fun invites. Some symbols to keep in mind: the shamrock (of course!), leprechauns, and a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. If you aren’t so artfully inclined, design something on your computer! Maybe just cut shamrocks out of green construction paper and neatly write the necessary info on them.

Green-Day Decor

Get balloons in white, gold, and diff shades of green. Scatter them around the room or tie 'em up. On an open wall, hang several different colored streamers to look like a rainbow. At the bottom, fill a black bowl with gold coin chocolates. Green it up even more with green paper plates, silverware and shamrock-themed tablecloths!

Festive Food

Use food coloring to dye the different sodas and drinks you’re having green. Keep the labels on your drinks to keep your guests from getting 'em confused! Go easy on the dye or your guests' mouths will oh-so-magically turn green, too. Eeek!

Grab some Irish themed cookie cutters at the grocery store and make sugar cookies shaped like shamrocks, rainbows, and pots of gold. Use icing and sprinkles to Irish 'em up. You can even make green-dyed rice crispy treats by adding a little green food coloring while your mixing.

Want to have some authentic Irish grub? Make Oatmeal Lace Cookies with cream or Irish Soda Bread. Not into sweet stuff? Cook up some Corned Beef and Cabbage.

Playin' for St. Patty's Day

Not sure what to do at your celebration? Try our St. Patty's versions of Pictionary and Twenty Questions. Or have a gold coin hunt (it's a lot like an egg hunt) and a Shamrock Relay. Not into games? Try a St. Patty's Day craft instead. Here's how!

To play Irish Pictionary, write a bunch of Irish themed objects down on pieces of paper. Some suggestions? Leprechauns, lucky clovers, shamrocks, blarney stone and more! Fold up and throw all papers in a big bowl. Split up into two or three teams. One member of a team at a time will choose a paper out of the bowl and then try to draw what's written on the paper. And remember...no talking allowed! First team to guess right in the first 30 seconds scores a point!

Or try out Irish Twenty Questions. How do ya play this game? One person thinks of an Irish person, place or thing. The rest of the group gets to ask up to 20 questions to try to guess what it is. The questions can only be answered with "yes," "no," or "I don't know." The person who guesses what the person, place, or thing is gets to go next.

Feelin' lucky!? Go for a gold coin hunt! Custom-create your own gold coins or use the chocolate gold-foil wrapped ones for a sweet treat. Hide 'em around the house and set your guests off on the hunt. Give everyone 10 mins to try to find the coins. Count up and see who has the most coins. May the luckiest lady win!

Want to get goin'? Try a Shamrock Relay! To play, make two or three construction paper shamrocks (depending on how many people you'll have and how many teams you want). Each team then lines up at the starting line. The first person on each team runs to an end line and back to the start line and hands off the shamrock to the next person in line. Whichever team has had all members run back and forth with the shamrock wins!

Not really a gaming girl? Have fun making your very own shamrock t-shirt! Tell everyone to bring a plain white tee that they wouldn't mind altering. Get several different shades of green fabric paint. To mix it up, also get some gold fabric glitter paint. Cut out various sized shamrocks out of sponges and use them to decorate your white tee!

Want more ideas!? Get even more tips to fab up your St. Patty's Day partyRIGHT HERE.

BLOG IT OUT! Love St. Patty's? Are you Irish? How do you celebrate? Throwin' a perf party? Marchin' in a parade? Cookin' up some Celtic sweets? Tell us!